Political Parties and Welfare Associations

Department of Sociology Umeå University Political parties and welfare associations by Ingrid Grosse Doctoral theses at the Department of Sociology Umeå University No 50 2007 Department of Sociology Umeå University Thesis 2007 Printed by Print & Media December 2007 Cover design: Gabriella Dekombis © Ingrid Grosse ISSN 1104-2508 ISBN 978-91-7264-478-6 Grosse, Ingrid. Political parties and welfare associations. Doctoral Dissertation in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå University, 2007. ISBN 978-91-7264-478-6 ISSN 1104-2508 ABSTRACT Scandinavian countries are usually assumed to be less disposed than other countries to involve associations as welfare producers. They are assumed to be so disinclined due to their strong statutory welfare involvement, which “crowds-out” associational welfare production; their ethnic, cultural and religious homogeneity, which leads to a lack of minority interests in associational welfare production; and to their strong working-class organisations, which are supposed to prefer statutory welfare solutions. These assumptions are questioned here, because they cannot account for salient associational welfare production in the welfare areas of housing and child-care in two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Norway. In order to approach an explanation for the phenomena of associational welfare production in Sweden and Norway, some refinements of current theories are suggested. First, it is argued that welfare associations usually depend on statutory support in order to produce welfare on a salient level. Second, it is supposed that any form of particularistic interest in welfare production, not only ethnic, cultural or religious minority interests, can lead to associational welfare. With respect to these assumptions, this thesis supposes that political parties are organisations that, on one hand, influence statutory decisions regarding associational welfare production, and, on the other hand, pursue particularistic interests in associational welfare production. It is hypothesised that political parties attempt to mould statutory decisions on associational welfare provision in accordance with the interests of associations with “congruent constituencies.” The aim of this thesis is to examine whether political party preferences for certain welfare associations might help to explain variations in statutory support for associational welfare provision. Two questions are raised: First, do parties differ in their attempts to influence statutory subventions and regulations of associational welfare provision, resulting in more or less favourable conditions for associational welfare? Second, do parties systematically differ in their policies with regard to more or less “congruent” associations? In order to investigate these questions, a comparison is made between political parties’ attempts to influence statutory regulation and subvention of Norwegian and Swedish associations active in the areas of day-care and housing. For this purpose, information is drawn from public documents and official statistics in order to identify more or less favourable policies and related partisan policies. In addition, supportive parties and favoured associations are compared with regard to their “constituencies.” The findings partly support the hypothesis. Although political parties partly pursued consensually association-friendly policies, they often varied their support for welfare associations, whereby both right-wing and left-wing parties partly advocated and partly rejected association-friendly policies in a conflicting way, resulting in varied degrees of statutory support. Furthermore, supportive parties shared “congruent constituencies” with those associations supported by respective parties’ policies. These findings indicate that partisan policies indeed make a difference for associational welfare production, whereby parties of any political colour can support associational solutions. Furthermore, partisan policies vary according to the involved associations’ more or less “congruent constituencies,” which can pursue welfare production out of various particularistic interests, be they religious-cultural or socio-economic in nature. Key words: Sweden, Norway, Scandinavia, Third sector, Voluntary organisations, Non-profit organisations, Cooperatives, Welfare policies, Childcare, Housing Now it is pleasant to hunt something that you want very much over a long period of time, being outwitted, outmanoeuvred, and failing at the end of each day, but having the hunt and knowing every time you are out there, sooner or later, your luck will change and that you will get the chance that you are seeking. But coming in at noon, up since two hours before daylight, with only three days left, there, at the table under the dining tent fly, talking away, was Kandinsky of the Tyroler pants. “Hello. Hello”, he said. “No success? Nothing doing? Where is the kudu?” I had forgotten all about him. - Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa Acknowledgements I want to thank all those who have helped and encouraged me to prepare this thesis. In particular, I am grateful for the support I received from the Department of Sociology at Umeå University. The department welcomed me warmly and helped me generously with all the practical support a doctorand could wish for. Kind financial support was provided by several organisations: The European Commission’s Training and Mobility Program (TMR) for Young Researchers on “Family and the Welfare State” financed a research stay at the University of Gothenburg in 2000, and the former Nordic Academy for Advanced Studies (NorFA) financed a research stay in Oslo in 2002. The Swedish Research Council (VR) supported my PhD project with a grant from 2002 to 2005. The Department of Sociology at Umeå University provided additional financial support. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to all those organisations and their employees, who offered advice and were friendly and patient in helping me find the information I was searching for: the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD), the Information Centre of the Swedish Riksdag, the Norwegian Ministries' Information Corner and Press Centre, the Norwegian Storting's Information Service, the Norwegian Federation of Co-operative Housing Associations (NBBL), the Riksdag Library, the National Archives of Sweden, Hyresgästernas Sparkasse och Byggnadsförening (HSB), Riksbyggen, Norges Kvinne- og Familieforbund, Swedish Social Science Data Service (SSD) and Den Norske Stats Husbank. Of course, I am very indebted to my supervisors, Jonas Edlund at the University of Umeå, Rafael Lindqvist at the University of Gothenburg and Apostolis Papakostas at Södertörn University College. They offered helpful comments on various drafts of my thesis and encouraged me throughout the writing process. Likewise, I would like to thank Dietmar Rauch, Lars Gulbrandsen, Erling Annaniassen, Håkan Lorentzen, Gunnar Olofsson, Jan- Erik Lane, Ulla Björnberg, Einar Överbye, Calle Hult and Lena Karlsson for information, comments and discussions. Einen großen Dank an meine Eltern, die immer der entscheidende Rückhalt in meinem Leben gewesen sind. Ingrid Grosse Umeå, December 2007 Contents Abstract Acknowledgements I. INTRODUCTION 3 1. Welfare associations: Definition and assumptions 4 2. Earlier research on the preconditions of associational welfare provision 9 3. Statutory and associational welfare activity 20 4. Political parties 40 II. DAY-CARE IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY 49 1. Introduction: Day-care 49 2. Associational limitations and statutory intervention 55 3. Statutory intervention and associational provision 58 • 4. Associations in day-care 70 5. Partisan policies 85 6. Parties and associations: Christian People’s Party, Housewives’ Federation and denominational associations 98 7. Day-care: Summary of main findings 110 III. HOUSING IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY 114 1. Introduction 114 2. Associational limitations and statutory intervention 122 3. Statutory intervention 126 4. The involved associations: cooperatives of differing character 141 5. Partisan policies 151 6. Parties and associations 165 7. Housing: Summary of main findings 175 IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 179 1. Introduction 179 2. Partisan policies concerning welfare associations 179 3. Partisan interests in welfare associations 188 4. Outlook: Changing parties and associations 197 APPENDICES 206 Appendix A 207 Appendix B 228 Appendix C 233 NOTES 238 REFERENCES 260 2 I. Introduction In Western Europe virtually all societies have institutionalised welfare provision for their populations on historically high levels, but they have done so in quite different ways. Thus, contemporary European welfare states differ significantly in, for instance, the overall volume of welfare expenditure (see e.g., Wilensky 1975) and the existence and construction of welfare entitlements (see e.g., Esping-Andersen 1990). Another major dimension of welfare state variation, which, as yet, has received less attention, is the composition of welfare provision among various provider types (see e.g., Alber 1995). In a number of welfare states the provision of welfare benefits is mostly organised by the state or the public sector, whereas, in other welfare states non-public for- profit provision is predominant or non-public associational welfare provision plays a major role. In other words, there are not only discernable differences in welfare expenditure and legal entitlement to welfare provision, but also perceptible differences in operational welfare

Load more